A Light in the Darkness
by Joel Peterson
Summary: Kylo Ren, humiliated by his defeat on Starkiller Base has returned to join the Knights of Ren and Supreme Leader Snoke in order to complete his training. Locked away for days in a deprivation chamber in total darkness and forced to ruminate on the most difficult test he had ever faced, Kylo feels the rising conflict within and learns about the nature of The Force.


Ben!

The darkness of the hours spent in the deprivation chamber had been

overwhelming. Silence upon silence drowning him, Kylo Ren sat in place

on cold stone hearing nothing but the whisper of the voices that that

haunted him; voices which were nothing more than a lingering memory,

anguished, from which there was no escape.

He felt a kind of agony, a wisp of grief burrowing into

his consciousness. And he fought against it unable to suffer the

pain it caused him.

Ben!

With a cry he stood to his feet and paced anxiously. As it often

did his inability to subdue the voices, and that cry of a name

which no longer belonged to him manifested as rage; a self loathing

hatred at himself, at his failure to calm himself and stay in the moment. So conflicted was his very training that he was pulled

between two ideologies; living in the present moment with the living

force, and dwelling in the anger of his past and present self that

they twisted him apart.

That final act he had performed had not righted his path as

he had hoped; it had only burdened him further. And the long days and

weeks spent in the dark chamber had seen his heart and mind split

down the middle, a part of his conditioning which he had expected

was intentional. He was completing his training, and the only path

to do so was through great suffering; not the physical trials imposed

on him by Snoke or the other Knights, but instead a long period of

solitude in utter darkness to "cleanse" the light that remained

within him.

Much like the disappointment Skywalker had expressed with

him and his failures time and time again, Snoke had done the same.

And it shattered what little confidence he had left. Putting his

hands upon his face and clenching his head as emotion ebbed through

him, Kylo Ren felt the scar inflicted upon him, a wound which

refused to heal.

The girl.

He pounded his fist against the stone wall of the chamber,

lashing out, releasing his hatred. And he saw the face of Skywalker.

A face the teemed with shame and regret, the last time he looked upon

his former master before fleeing the Jedi temple, returning only

when he had the strength to reduce it to ashes.

Cutting them down one by one.

His rage fueling every action, every swing of his unstable,

boiling saber as it shredded through his former allies, snuffing out

the flame of the force within them.

It had felt so good.

But still, despite all that, the face of his master, his uncle,

haunted him. It was the specter of a legacy he could never live up too.

A path he could never tread so fantastic and unbelievable was the myth

surrounding Luke Skywalker. And the jealousy that had overcome him as

a result of the constant reminder of the destiny he could never fulfill

consumed him; and so he found another mentor, the voices that called

from the darkness, channeled to him through Snoke.

The power. The strength.

How anyone couldn't feel it. How they couldn't see what strength

flowed from the darkness, Kylo Ren couldn't understand.

How his uncle could blind himself to it so willingly when it was so

very clear so abundantly present and so irrefutably dominating. It was

because of this that Kylo Ren had carried out that last fateful act,

to secure himself in the shroud of the abyss that called to him.

Ben!

Ben Solo fell to his knees and let out an anguished cry

which echoed through the room. To see his blade come through the other

side of the man whom he had once called father. It should have

strengthened his resolve but in that moment, he felt emptiness.

"Han Solo."

He muttered the name aloud, heard it echo back him. And

a foul chill crept over him. The man who was never there, who

had sent him to Skywalker, who sensed the darkness within him

even before he himself had been aware of it; a man afraid of

his potential, his strength, but not afraid of him. A part of him,

the part that Snoke had suspected was still there had wanted to let

go, to allow his father to take his haphazardly constructed blade,

to toss it into the abyss of Starkiller Base. But the darkness had

a will of its own, and it stayed his grip, ignited the blade, and

ended his fathers life. He could still feel the chill of forgiving

fingers brushing against his face. And when he thought of it, the

scar left upon him by the rage of the girl who had defeated him

burned with the imprinted of an aching hatred - a hatred he could

feel as ever present as the darkness itself, one that would have

ended his life had a rift in the earth between them had not

separated their paths.

"Han Solo."

Silence.

in the murk of blinding shadow, a figure appeared before

Kylo Ren. Illuminated in a cold blue light, the cloaked ghost

which haunted his waking dreams stood before him; the man

called Anakin Skywalker.

"Grandfather."

The figure said nothing, simply loomed over Kylo Ren.

And as his face became visible beneath the draping hood of his

cloak, Kylo sensed the conflict, saw the very same confusion in

his grandfather that he felt within himself. With a face half

flesh and half machine, the figure needed not say a thing. With

an unbroken gaze that penetrated Kylo Ren and made him feel like

a small child, Kylo knew exactly what the illusion represented.

"Show me." Kylo whispered. "Show me the darkness."

The figure vanished before him.

"SHOW ME!"

Suddenly a cascade of light. Kylo Ren cried out, covering

his face as light flooded into the room and attacked him. He very

quickly realized that the chamber door had been opened. His

isolation was at an end, but he felt no closer to a cleansing

of the light than he had before entering in the first place.

Saito Ren stood before him, donned in a similar mask

and cloak; another Knight of Ren, disciple to Supreme Leader

Snoke. He towered over Kylo, tall, fierce and stoic. And he

held something in between a gloved fingers which emited a

dull, blue and red glow.

"Our Leader says you are ready." Was all Kylo heard

from behind the synthesizer in his mask, a tinny buzz

somewhat more sinister and snake like than Kylo's own

helmet.

Kylo confided in no one, but he rejected the claim

on the notion that Snoke's assumption about him was wrong;

he had not extinguished the light in him as the training

had been intended. He was no closer to completing his training

in the dark side of the force than he had been before entering.

If anything, it felt to him as though he were weaker, more

tainted by light than before.

"I need more time." Was all he said in reply.

"The supreme leader demands your presence now."

Saito replied in a stern matter. "There is no more time to give. Our master is impatient.

And he says you are ready."

"I feel the pull of the light. He senses this.

You all sense this. I am no closer to purification than

I was before."

Saito circled Kylo, looking him up and down.

"He expected this from you. I'll say little

on the matter except this."

Saito held out his hand; there were two Kaiber

Crystals in his palm. One red, one blue.

"The supreme leader is wise." Saito said with

finality. "If he says you are ready, you are ready."

Kylo looked down at the glowing crystals,

puzzled by the presence of two. And then it began to

make sense.

Ben!

Skywalker, so rigid in his devotion to the light.

His father Anakin, a master in both the light and the

dark side of the force. The Jedi had fallen due to their

lack of vision, their restrictive view of the living force.

And the Sith had done the same.

Snoke was wise beyond his many years, and he had

witnessed the fall of the Jedi, the rise of the Sith, and

the eventual destruction of both.

Ben Solo had killed his father, but he was no less

conflicted now as Kylo Ren, perhaps more. But the truth of

things dawned on him quickly as his eyes surveyed the

glowing crystals, the basis for the new saber he had been

tasked to construct.

There would never be another Sith Lord again. Nor

could another Jedi rise.

True power came from a balance of the Force. And as

both Kylo Ren and Ben Solo peered into the spectrum of light

and dark itself, they both realized, as one living man torn

between two halves, what their destiny was.

There had been an awakening; the dark side, and the

light. And only through the embrace of both could real,

lasting power truly be obtained.

Kylo Ren took the crystals out of Saito's hand, and

made the long march back to the Supreme Leaders temple to

begin his real training.


End file.
